wfn.org | $500,000 Lilly Endowment Grant Caps NCCs Financial Turnaround

["Nat'l Council of Churches" <nccc_usa@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of Churches
NCC8/1/02 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

$500,000 Lilly Endowment Development Grant Caps
National Council of Churches Financial Turnaround

NEW YORK, August 1, 2002 - Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis, Ind., has
awarded the National Council of Churches a three-year, $500,000 grant to
help the Council develop resources for new programs.

The gift caps a remarkable financial turnaround for the NCC.

In January 2000, when Bob Edgar became General Secretary, the
half-century-old Christian organization was financially on the ropes after a
decade of deficit spending. Many feared the venerable NCC wouldnt make it
through the year.

Today, after a major reorganization of staff, facilities and budget, the NCC
is back in the black, with not only a balanced operating budget achieved for
2001-2002, but long-term investments that are growing instead of
hemorrhaging.  New partnerships with groups like Habitat for Humanity and
Childrens Defense Fund are flourishing, and donor support is up for the
second year, by double- and triple-digit percentages.

The new grant from the respected Lilly Endowment will boost the Council into
the next phase of its renewal.

The Lilly grant is crucial venture capital, assisting us where we need it
most, in reaching out to those who believe in the kind of work we are doing
and who, given appropriate information, will help underwrite its expansion,
said Edgar, a former seminary president who also spent six terms as a member
of Congress.

The Councils programs are wide ranging.  They include Bible translation
(which produced the highly successful Revised and New Revised Standard
Versions), 14 Christian education programs, a Washington-based public policy
office, economic and environmental justice efforts, faith and order
discussions among scholars, extensive interfaith relationships, and a
mobilization to reduce poverty in America.

 From its founding in 1950, the NCC was largely dependent on the
contributions of its member denominations - currently 36 mainline
budgets, their investment in cooperative work through the NCC slowly
Protestant, African-American and Orthodox communions with 140,000 local
congregations - but as those national bodies faced steadily tightening
declined. 

The Council spent much of its long-term investments to avoid eliminating
important programs and, by 2000, the budget was in a crisis.

The turnaround was steep but successful.  Now, with a streamlined
administrative structure and a balanced operating budget for the first time
in more than 10 years - and armed with the Lilly grant - the NCC will seek
to underwrite programs that will address the most critical issues facing its
members in the second half of its first century.

Beyond the NCCs own work, its member churches are helping launch a new
movement provisionally called Christian Churches Together in the USA,
which hopes to enlarge the nations ecumenical family by including many
Christian bodies - particularly Roman Catholics and evangelicals - who have
not been active in the NCC.

Founded in 1937, the Lilly Endowment is a private foundation that follows
its founders wishes in supporting the causes of religion, community
development, and education.

-end-

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To schedule Bob Edgar for interviews, call Vicki Manning (212-870-2025),
Carol Fouke (212-870-2252), or Pat Pattillo (212-870-2048).